Techniques for communicating entity references in a messaging thread

ABSTRACT

Techniques for communicating entity references in messaging groups are described. In one embodiment, an apparatus may comprise a client messaging component operative to receive a message at a recipient client device from a messaging system, the recipient client device associated with a recipient user account, the message comprising an entity reference, the message addressed to a message thread; and extract an augmentation element for the entity reference from the message; and a user interface component operative to display the augmentation element in a message thread display for the message thread on the recipient client device. Other embodiments are described and claimed.

RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is related to the U.S. patent application titled“TECHNIQUES FOR GENERATING ENTITY REFERENCES IN A MESSAGING THREAD,”Ser. No. 15/434,887, filed Feb. 16, 2017, which is hereby incorporatedby reference in its entirety.

This application is also related to the U.S. patent application titled“TECHNIQUES FOR AUGMENTING ENTITY REFERENCES IN A MESSAGING SYSTEM,”Ser. No. 15/434,904, filed Feb. 16, 2017, which is hereby incorporatedby reference in its entirety.

BACKGROUND

Users may interact with each other in a messaging system, sendingmessages back and forth to each other in a text-based conversationbetween two or more users. A user may have a user account associatedwith them in the messaging system, the user account providing an onlineidentity for the user, a destination for messages directed to the user,and generally coordinating the user's access to and use of the messagingsystem. A user may access the messaging system from a variety ofendpoints, including mobile devices (e.g., cellphones), desktopcomputers, web browsers, specialized messaging clients, etc.

SUMMARY

The following presents a simplified summary in order to provide a basicunderstanding of some novel embodiments described herein. This summaryis not an extensive overview, and it is not intended to identifykey/critical elements or to delineate the scope thereof. Some conceptsare presented in a simplified form as a prelude to the more detaileddescription that is presented later.

Various embodiments are generally directed to techniques for entityreferences in messaging groups. Some embodiments are particularlydirected to techniques for generating, communicating, and augmentingentity references in messaging groups. In one embodiment, for example,an apparatus may comprise a user interface component operative topredict an entity-reference invocation in a message thread display on aclient device; suggest one or more entities for use in theentity-reference invocation in response to predicting theentity-reference invocation; and receive the entity-referenceinvocation, the entity-reference invocation comprising an entityreference; and a client messaging component operative to generate amessage comprising the entity reference; and send the message to amessaging system.

In another embodiment, for example, an apparatus may comprise a clientmessaging component operative to receive a message at a recipient clientdevice from a messaging system, the recipient client device associatedwith a recipient user account, the message comprising an entityreference, the message addressed to a message thread; and extract anaugmentation element for the entity reference from the message; and auser interface component operative to display the augmentation elementin a message thread display for the message thread on the recipientclient device.

In another embodiment, for example, an apparatus may comprise amessaging component operative to receive a message from a referencingclient device at a messaging system, the message comprising an entityreference; determine a receiving user account for the message; and sendan augmented entity reference to one or more receiving client devicesassociated with the receiving user account; and an entity referencecomponent operative to select an augmentation element associated withthe entity reference; and generate the augmented entity reference byaugmenting the entity reference with the augmentation element.

Other embodiments are described and claimed.

To the accomplishment of the foregoing and related ends, certainillustrative aspects are described herein in connection with thefollowing description and the annexed drawings. These aspects areindicative of the various ways in which the principles disclosed hereincan be practiced and all aspects and equivalents thereof are intended tobe within the scope of the claimed subject matter. Other advantages andnovel features will become apparent from the following detaileddescription when considered in conjunction with the drawings.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 illustrates an embodiment of an entity reference system.

FIG. 2 illustrates an embodiment of a social graph.

FIG. 3A illustrates an embodiment of a user interface with a partialentity reference invocation.

FIG. 3B illustrates an embodiment of a user interface with an entityreference invocation.

FIG. 4A illustrates an embodiment of a user interface with an entityreference display.

FIG. 4B illustrates an embodiment of a user interface with an entitycard.

FIG. 5 illustrates an embodiment of an entity reference systemprocessing a message into an augmented message with an augmentationelement.

FIG. 6A illustrates an embodiment of a first logic flow for the systemof FIG. 1.

FIG. 6B illustrates an embodiment of a second logic flow for the systemof FIG. 1.

FIG. 6C illustrates an embodiment of a third logic flow for the systemof FIG. 1.

FIG. 7 illustrates an embodiment of a centralized system for the systemof FIG. 1.

FIG. 8 illustrates an embodiment of a distributed system for the systemof FIG. 1.

FIG. 9 illustrates an embodiment of a computing architecture.

FIG. 10 illustrates an embodiment of a communications architecture.

FIG. 11 illustrates an embodiment of a radio device architecture.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Mentioning another user in a group messaging conversation may aid ingetting that user's attention and calling them directly into themessaging and posting experience. Mentioning a user may be enhanced byproviding a process through which users can select defined entities thatthey are mentioning. By establishing that something being mentioned in amessage refers to a particular entity, the message may be augmented withvarious information and tools to enhance the experience of mentioningsomething and interacting with a message where something has beenmentioned.

In some instances, a user may mention another user. The mentioned usermay have their attention called to the mention. For example, thementioned user may be sent a notification that they were mentioned, maybe shown a preview of the mention in an inbox view, may be empowered tonavigate to mentions of them within a message thread, and may havementions of them be displayed distinctively to empower the visualrecognition of their mentions. Either or both of the sending user andother non-mentioned viewing users may be shown information to help themunderstand who is being mentioned, information otherwise related to thementioned, and/or controls empower various actions to be taken inrelation to the mentioned.

Users may mention entities other than other users. For instance, usersmay mention media, products, businesses, people, locations, or otherthings. Any of these may be augmented with information and controls. Asa result, users may receive an improved experience in mentioning usersand other things on a messaging system.

Reference is now made to the drawings, wherein like reference numeralsare used to refer to like elements throughout. In the followingdescription, for purposes of explanation, numerous specific details areset forth in order to provide a thorough understanding thereof. It maybe evident, however, that the novel embodiments can be practiced withoutthese specific details. In other instances, well known structures anddevices are shown in block diagram form in order to facilitate adescription thereof. The intention is to cover all modifications,equivalents, and alternatives consistent with the claimed subjectmatter.

It is worthy to note that “a” and “b” and “c” and similar designators asused herein are intended to be variables representing any positiveinteger. Thus, for example, if an implementation sets a value for a=5,then a complete set of components 122 illustrated as components 122-1through 122-a may include components 122-1, 122-2, 122-3, 122-4 and122-5. The embodiments are not limited in this context.

FIG. 1 illustrates a block diagram for a entity reference system 100. Inone embodiment, the entity reference system 100 may comprise acomputer-implemented system having software applications comprising oneor more components. Although the entity reference system 100 shown inFIG. 1 has a limited number of elements in a certain topology, it may beappreciated that the entity reference system 100 may include more orless elements in alternate topologies as desired for a givenimplementation.

Messaging servers 110 may comprise one or more messaging serversoperated by a messaging platform as part of a messaging system. Amessaging server may comprise an Internet-accessible server, with thenetwork 120 connecting the various devices of the messaging systemcomprising, at least in part, the Internet. A messaging system may usethe messaging servers 110 to support messaging for various user clientdevices.

A user may own and operate a smartphone device 150. The smartphonedevice 150 may comprise an iPhone® device, an Android® device, aBlackberry® device, or any other mobile computing device conforming to asmartphone form. The smartphone device 150 may be a cellular devicecapable of connecting to a network 120 via a cell system 130 usingcellular signals 135. In some embodiments and in some cases thesmartphone device 150 may additionally or alternatively use Wi-Fi orother networking technologies to connect to the network 120. Thesmartphone device 150 may execute a messaging client, web browser, orother local application to access the messaging servers 110.

The same user may own and operate a tablet device 160. The tablet device150 may comprise an iPad® device, an Android® tablet device, a KindleFire® device, or any other mobile computing device conforming to atablet form. The tablet device 160 may be a Wi-Fi device capable ofconnecting to a network 120 via a Wi-Fi access point 140 using Wi-Fisignals 145. In some embodiments and in some cases the tablet device 160may additionally or alternatively use cellular or other networkingtechnologies to connect to the network 120. The tablet device 160 mayexecute a messaging client, web browser, or other local application toaccess the messaging servers 110.

The same user may own and operate a personal computer device 180. Thepersonal computer device 180 may comprise a Mac OS® device, Windows®device, Linux® device, or other computer device running anotheroperating system. The personal computer device 180 may be an Ethernetdevice capable of connecting to a network 120 via an Ethernetconnection. In some embodiments and in some cases the personal computerdevice 180 may additionally or alternatively use cellular, Wi-Fi, orother networking technologies to the network 120. The personal computerdevice 180 may execute a messaging client, web browser 170, or otherlocal application to access the messaging servers 110.

A messaging client may be a dedicated messaging client. A dedicatedmessaging client may be specifically associated with a messagingprovider administering the messaging platform including the messagingservers 110. A dedicated messaging client may be a general clientoperative to work with a plurality of different messaging providersincluding the messaging provider administering the messaging platformincluding the messaging servers 110.

The messaging client may be a component of an application providingadditional functionality. For example, a social networking service mayprovide a social networking application for use on a mobile device foraccessing and using the social networking service. The social networkingservice may include messaging functionality such as may be provided bymessaging servers 110. It will be appreciated that the messaging servers110 may be one component of a computing device for the social networkingservice, with the computing device providing additional functionality ofthe social networking service. Similarly, the social networkingapplication may provide both messaging functionality and additionalsocial networking functionality.

In some cases a messaging endpoint may retain state between usersessions and in some cases a messaging endpoint may relinquish statebetween user session. A messaging endpoint may use a local store toretain the current state of a message inbox. This local store may besaved in persistent storage such that the state may be retrieved betweenone session and the next, including situations in which, for example, alocal application is quit or otherwise removed from memory or a deviceis powered off and on again. Alternatively, a messaging endpoint may usea memory cache to retain the current state of a message inbox butrefrain from committing the state of the message inbox to persistentstorage.

A messaging endpoint that retains the state of a message inbox maycomprise a dedicated messaging application or a messaging utilityintegrated into another local application, such as a social networkingapplication. A messaging endpoint that relinquishes state of a messageinbox may comprise messaging access implemented within a web browser. Inone embodiment, a web browser, such as web browser 170 executing onpersonal computer device 180, may execute HTML5 code that interacts withthe messaging server to present messaging functionality to a user.

A user may send and receive messages from a plurality of devices,including the smartphone device 150, tablet device 160, and personalcomputer device 180. The user may use a first messaging application onthe smartphone device 150, a second messaging application on the tabletdevice 160, and the web browser 170 on the personal computer device 180.The first and second messaging applications may comprise installationsof the same application on both devices. The first and second messagingapplications may comprise a smartphone-specific and a tablet-specificversion of a common application. The first and second messagingapplication may comprise distinct applications.

The user may benefit from having their message inbox kept consistentbetween their devices. A user may use their smartphone device 150 on thecell system 130 while away from their home, sending and receivingmessages via the cells system 130. The user may stop by a coffee shop,or other location offering Wi-Fi, and connect their tablet device 160 toa Wi-Fi access point 140. The tablet device 160 may retrieve itsexisting known state for the message inbox and receive updates that havehappened since the last occasion on which the tablet device 160 hadaccess to a network, including any messages sent by the smartphonedevice 150 and that may have been received by the user while operatingthe smartphone device 150. The user may then return home and accesstheir message inbox using a web browser 170 on a personal computerdevice 180. The web browser 170 may receive a snapshot of the currentstate of the message inbox from the messaging servers 110 due to it notmaintaining or otherwise not having access to an existing state for themessage inbox. The web browser 170 may then retrieve incremental updatesfor any new changes to the state of the message inbox so long as itmaintains a user session with the messaging servers 110, discarding itsknown state for the message inbox at the end of the session, such aswhen the web browser 170 is closed by the user. Without limitation, anupdate may correspond to the addition of a message to a mailbox, adeletion of a message from a mailbox, and a read receipt.

A messaging system may operate by defining a messaging inbox ascomprising a plurality of messages, wherein each message is anindividual transaction of communication between two or moreparticipants. A mail server may operate by maintaining a message indexfor the messaging inbox. Mail servers may receive messages and store themessages in mail archives from which messages may be retrieved throughreference to the message index. Mail clients may connect to the mailservers and retrieve messages that have been added to their mail archivesince their last update. The mail clients may receive a mail index fromthe mail archive indicating what messages are stored in the mailarchive. The mail clients may compare the mail archive to their currentinbox in order to determine what messages they are missing, which theythen request from the mail archive. The mail clients may make changes totheir inbox, which results in mail inbox instructions being transmittedto the mail archives instructing the mail archives in modifications tomake to the representation of their mail inbox on the mail archives.

Messaging interactions mediated by a messaging system may be organizedinto shared spaces known as message threads. A message thread maycollect together the messages shared between a particular group ofusers. Messages sent individually between a pair of users may becollected into a one-on-one message thread uniquely associated with theprivate messaging between the pair of users. Messages sent between agroup of three or more users may not be uniquely defined by theirmembership, but instead by, in some embodiments, an identifier uniquelyidentifying the group thread. Membership in a group thread may, in someembodiments, vary over time, adding and/or losing members.

Messaging interactions may use end-to-end encrypted communicationbetween client devices. A sending client device may encrypt an outgoingmessage using security techniques that establish one of only thereceiving device being able to decrypt the outgoing message (e.g., byusing public-key cryptography) or only the sending and receiving devicesbeing able to decrypt the outgoing message (e.g., by using shared-keycryptography). In these embodiments, the servers of the messaging systemmay be prevented from decrypting messages being sent between clients.However, in other embodiments, while encrypted communication may be usedbetween the client devices and server devices, the messaging serverdevices may be empowered to examine the contents of user messages. Suchexamination may be used to provide services to the users of themessaging system. In some embodiments, users may be empowered to selectwhether a particular message thread uses end-to-end encryption (andthereby receive the additional privacy of the messaging servers beingprevented from examining the contents of messages) or doesn't (andthereby receive the benefit of the messaging system being able toprogrammatically examine messages and offer relevant services to theusers).

The messaging system may use knowledge generated from interactions inbetween users. The messaging system may comprise a component of asocial-networking system and may use knowledge generated from thebroader interactions of the social-networking system. As such, toprotect the privacy of the users of the messaging system and the largersocial-networking system, messaging system may include an authorizationserver (or other suitable component(s)) that allows users to opt in toor opt out of having their actions logged by the messaging system orshared with other systems (e.g., third-party systems), for example, bysetting appropriate privacy settings. A privacy setting of a user maydetermine what information associated with the user may be logged, howinformation associated with the user may be logged, when informationassociated with the user may be logged, who may log informationassociated with the user, whom information associated with the user maybe shared with, and for what purposes information associated with theuser may be logged or shared. Authorization servers or otherauthorization components may be used to enforce one or more privacysettings of the users of the messaging system and other elements of asocial-networking system through blocking, data hashing, anonymization,or other suitable techniques as appropriate.

FIG. 2 illustrates an example of a social graph 200. In particularembodiments, a social-networking system may store one or more socialgraphs 200 in one or more data stores as a social graph data structure.

In particular embodiments, social graph 200 may include multiple nodes,which may include multiple user nodes 202 and multiple concept nodes204. Social graph 200 may include multiple edges 206 connecting thenodes. In particular embodiments, a social-networking system, clientsystem, third-party system, or any other system or device may accesssocial graph 200 and related social-graph information for suitableapplications. The nodes and edges of social graph 200 may be stored asdata objects, for example, in a data store (such as a social-graphdatabase). Such a data store may include one or more searchable orqueryable indexes of nodes or edges of social graph 200.

In particular embodiments, a user node 202 may correspond to a user ofthe social-networking system. As an example and not by way oflimitation, a user may be an individual (human user), an entity (e.g.,an enterprise, business, or third-party application), or a group (e.g.,of individuals or entities) that interacts or communicates with or overthe social-networking system. In particular embodiments, when a userregisters for an account with the social-networking system, thesocial-networking system may create a user node 202 corresponding to theuser, and store the user node 202 in one or more data stores. Users anduser nodes 202 described herein may, where appropriate, refer toregistered users and user nodes 202 associated with registered users. Inaddition or as an alternative, users and user nodes 202 described hereinmay, where appropriate, refer to users that have not registered with thesocial-networking system. In particular embodiments, a user node 202 maybe associated with information provided by a user or informationgathered by various systems, including the social-networking system. Asan example and not by way of limitation, a user may provide their name,profile picture, contact information, birth date, sex, marital status,family status, employment, education background, preferences, interests,or other demographic information. In particular embodiments, a user node202 may be associated with one or more data objects corresponding toinformation associated with a user. In particular embodiments, a usernode 202 may correspond to one or more webpages. A user node 202 may beassociated with a unique user identifier for the user in thesocial-networking system.

In particular embodiments, a concept node 204 may correspond to aconcept. As an example and not by way of limitation, a concept maycorrespond to a place (such as, for example, a movie theater,restaurant, landmark, or city); a website (such as, for example, awebsite associated with the social-network service or a third-partywebsite associated with a web-application server); an entity (such as,for example, a person, business, group, sports team, or celebrity); aresource (such as, for example, an audio file, video file, digitalphoto, text file, structured document, or application) which may belocated within the social-networking system or on an external server,such as a web-application server; real or intellectual property (suchas, for example, a sculpture, painting, movie, game, song, idea,photograph, or written work); a game; an activity; an idea or theory;another suitable concept; or two or more such concepts. A concept node204 may be associated with information of a concept provided by a useror information gathered by various systems, including thesocial-networking system. As an example and not by way of limitation,information of a concept may include a name or a title; one or moreimages (e.g., an image of the cover page of a book); a location (e.g.,an address or a geographical location); a website (which may beassociated with a URL); contact information (e.g., a phone number or anemail address); other suitable concept information; or any suitablecombination of such information. In particular embodiments, a conceptnode 204 may be associated with one or more data objects correspondingto information associated with concept node 204. In particularembodiments, a concept node 204 may correspond to one or more webpages.

In particular embodiments, a node in social graph 200 may represent orbe represented by a webpage (which may be referred to as a “profilepage”). Profile pages may be hosted by or accessible to thesocial-networking system. Profile pages may also be hosted onthird-party websites associated with a third-party server. As an exampleand not by way of limitation, a profile page corresponding to aparticular external webpage may be the particular external webpage andthe profile page may correspond to a particular concept node 204.Profile pages may be viewable by all or a selected subset of otherusers. As an example and not by way of limitation, a user node 202 mayhave a corresponding user-profile page in which the corresponding usermay add content, make declarations, or otherwise express himself orherself. A business page such as business page 205 may comprise auser-profile page for a commerce entity. As another example and not byway of limitation, a concept node 204 may have a correspondingconcept-profile page in which one or more users may add content, makedeclarations, or express themselves, particularly in relation to theconcept corresponding to concept node 204.

In particular embodiments, a concept node 204 may represent athird-party webpage or resource hosted by a third-party system. Thethird-party webpage or resource may include, among other elements,content, a selectable or other icon, or other inter-actable object(which may be implemented, for example, in JavaScript, AJAX, or PHPcodes) representing an action or activity. As an example and not by wayof limitation, a third-party webpage may include a selectable icon suchas “like,” “check in,” “eat,” “recommend,” or another suitable action oractivity. A user viewing the third-party webpage may perform an actionby selecting one of the icons (e.g., “eat”), causing a client system tosend to the social-networking system a message indicating the user'saction. In response to the message, the social-networking system maycreate an edge (e.g., an “eat” edge) between a user node 202corresponding to the user and a concept node 204 corresponding to thethird-party webpage or resource and store edge 206 in one or more datastores.

In particular embodiments, a pair of nodes in social graph 200 may beconnected to each other by one or more edges 206. An edge 206 connectinga pair of nodes may represent a relationship between the pair of nodes.In particular embodiments, an edge 206 may include or represent one ormore data objects or attributes corresponding to the relationshipbetween a pair of nodes. As an example and not by way of limitation, afirst user may indicate that a second user is a “friend” of the firstuser. In response to this indication, the social-networking system maysend a “friend request” to the second user. If the second user confirmsthe “friend request,” the social-networking system may create an edge206 connecting the first user's user node 202 to the second user's usernode 202 in social graph 200 and store edge 206 as social-graphinformation in one or more data stores. In the example of FIG. 2, socialgraph 200 includes an edge 206 indicating a friend relation between usernodes 202 of user “Amanda” and user “Dorothy.” Although this disclosuredescribes or illustrates particular edges 206 with particular attributesconnecting particular user nodes 202, this disclosure contemplates anysuitable edges 206 with any suitable attributes connecting user nodes202. As an example and not by way of limitation, an edge 206 mayrepresent a friendship, family relationship, business or employmentrelationship, fan relationship, follower relationship, visitorrelationship, subscriber relationship, superior/subordinaterelationship, reciprocal relationship, non-reciprocal relationship,another suitable type of relationship, or two or more suchrelationships. Moreover, although this disclosure generally describesnodes as being connected, this disclosure also describes users orconcepts as being connected. Herein, references to users or conceptsbeing connected may, where appropriate, refer to the nodes correspondingto those users or concepts being connected in social graph 200 by one ormore edges 206.

In particular embodiments, an edge 206 between a user node 202 and aconcept node 204 may represent a particular action or activity performedby a user associated with user node 202 toward a concept associated witha concept node 204. As an example and not by way of limitation, asillustrated in FIG. 2, a user may “like,” “attended,” “played,”“listened,” “cooked,” “worked at,” or “watched” a concept, each of whichmay correspond to a edge type or subtype. A concept-profile pagecorresponding to a concept node 204 may include, for example, aselectable “check in” icon (such as, for example, a clickable “check in”icon) or a selectable “add to favorites” icon. Similarly, after a userclicks these icons, the social-networking system may create a “favorite”edge or a “check in” edge in response to a user's action correspondingto a respective action. As another example and not by way of limitation,a user (user “Carla”) may listen to a particular song (“Across the Sea”)using a particular application (SPOTIFY, which is an online musicapplication). In this case, the social-networking system may create a“listened” edge 206 and a “used” edge (as illustrated in FIG. 2) betweenuser nodes 202 corresponding to the user and concept nodes 204corresponding to the song and application to indicate that the userlistened to the song and used the application. Moreover, thesocial-networking system may create a “played” edge 206 (as illustratedin FIG. 2) between concept nodes 204 corresponding to the song and theapplication to indicate that the particular song was played by theparticular application. In this case, “played” edge 206 corresponds toan action performed by an external application (SPOTIFY) on an externalaudio file (the song “Across the Sea”). Although this disclosuredescribes particular edges 206 with particular attributes connectinguser nodes 202 and concept nodes 204, this disclosure contemplates anysuitable edges 206 with any suitable attributes connecting user nodes202 and concept nodes 204. Moreover, although this disclosure describesedges between a user node 202 and a concept node 204 representing asingle relationship, this disclosure contemplates edges between a usernode 202 and a concept node 204 representing one or more relationships.As an example and not by way of limitation, an edge 206 may representboth that a user likes and has used at a particular concept.Alternatively, another edge 206 may represent each type of relationship(or multiples of a single relationship) between a user node 202 and aconcept node 204 (as illustrated in FIG. 2 between user node 202 foruser “Edwin” and concept node 204 for “SPOTIFY”).

In particular embodiments, the social-networking system may create anedge 206 between a user node 202 and a concept node 204 in social graph200. As an example and not by way of limitation, a user viewing aconcept-profile page (such as, for example, by using a web browser or aspecial-purpose application hosted by the user's client system) mayindicate that he or she likes the concept represented by the conceptnode 204 by clicking or selecting a “Like” icon, which may cause theuser's client system to send to the social-networking system a messageindicating the user's liking of the concept associated with theconcept-profile page. In response to the message, the social-networkingsystem may create an edge 206 between user node 202 associated with theuser and concept node 204, as illustrated by “like” edge 206 between theuser and concept node 204. In particular embodiments, thesocial-networking system may store an edge 206 in one or more datastores. In particular embodiments, an edge 206 may be automaticallyformed by the social-networking system in response to a particular useraction. As an example and not by way of limitation, if a first useruploads a picture, watches a movie, or listens to a song, an edge 206may be formed between user node 202 corresponding to the first user andconcept nodes 204 corresponding to those concepts. Although thisdisclosure describes forming particular edges 206 in particular manners,this disclosure contemplates forming any suitable edges 206 in anysuitable manner.

The social graph 200 may further comprise a plurality of product nodes.Product nodes may represent particular products that may be associatedwith a particular business. A business may provide a product catalog tothe consumer-to-business service 110 and the consumer-to-businessservice 110 may therefore represent each of the products within theproduct in the social graph 200 with each product being in a distinctproduct node. A product node may comprise information relating to theproduct, such as pricing information, descriptive information,manufacturer information, availability information, and other relevantinformation. For example, each of the items on a menu for a restaurantmay be represented within the social graph 200 with a product nodedescribing each of the items. A product node may be linked by an edge tothe business providing the product. Where multiple businesses provide aproduct, each business may have a distinct product node associated withits providing of the product or may each link to the same product node.A product node may be linked by an edge to each user that has purchased,rated, owns, recommended, or viewed the product, with the edgedescribing the nature of the relationship (e.g., purchased, rated, owns,recommended, viewed, or other relationship). Each of the product nodesmay be associated with a graph id and an associated merchant id byvirtue of the linked merchant business. Products available from abusiness may therefore be communicated to a user by retrieving theavailable product nodes linked to the user node for the business withinthe social graph 200. The information for a product node may bemanipulated by the social-networking system as a product object thatencapsulates information regarding the referenced product.

FIG. 3A illustrates an embodiment of a user interface 300 with a partialentity reference invocation 310.

A client device 320 may correspond to any device used to access anentity reference system 100. While in the illustrated embodiment of FIG.3A the client device 320 resembles a smartphone device, it will beappreciated that the techniques described herein may be used with anytype of device.

The user interface 300 may comprise a user interface for a messagethread. At least a portion of the message exchange for the messagethread may be displayed. In the illustrated embodiment, a portion of themessage exchange display is obscured by the suggested entities 305. Thefeatures discussed with regards to a message thread may be applied toeither one-on-one message threads or group message threads.

The user interface 300 may include a display of thread information 302.The thread information 302 may comprise a listing of one or more otherusers involved in the thread. A display of the one or more other usersmay use the name of a user, such as a full name, short name, or othername registered as the name for use with a particular user for messagingand/or social-networking interactions. A display of the one or moreother users may use an avatar, profile picture, or other visualrepresentation of the one or more other users. For a group messagethread, the thread information 302 may indicate the plurality of peopleparticipating in the group message thread, or may indicate a portion ofthat plurality of people, such as where there are too many participantsin the group message thread to display within space allotted for thethread information 302. In some cases, such as with a public groupmessage thread, the thread information 302 may be a public name assignedto the public group message thread.

As part of a messaging interaction, the user of a client device 320 maymention an entity, such as another user. The user may enter a partialentity reference invocation 310 as part of entering text in a text-entryfield. In the illustrated embodiment, the partial entity referenceinvocation 310 includes an entity-reference symbol, such as the at-sign‘@’. An entity-reference symbol may indicate a user's desire to make anentity reference and may be used as a prefix to text identifying theentity for referencing, the entity to be referenced. However, in someembodiments, a reference to an entity by a user may be recognizedwithout the use of the entity-reference symbol.

The entity reference system 100 detects, predicts, or otherwisedetermines that the user may be aided through the offering of suggestedentities 305. The suggested entity 305 are one or more suggestionsgenerated by the entity reference system 100 to aid the user incomposing an entity reference. The suggested entities 305 may bedetermined based on the contents of the user's partial entity referenceinvocation 310, the context of the messaging conversation, and a historyfor the composing user, without limitation. In the illustratedembodiment, the user has entered an initial character—a “C”—for theentity-reference invocation, and in response the entity reference system100 has suggested entities—in this case users—with names starting withthat initial character.

The suggested entities 305 may comprise a plurality of suggested entitycontrols, with each of the plurality of suggested entity controlscorresponding to a suggested entity of a plurality of suggested entities305. A selected suggested entity control may empower a user to add asuggested entity reference associated with the selected suggested entitycontrol.

In some cases, an entity reference may be created without the use of anentity-reference symbol. The entity reference system 100 may detect thata portion or all of a composition field corresponds to a partial orcomplete identifier for an entity, even without the use of anentity-reference symbol or other explicit indication that entered textcorresponds to a known entity. An identifier may comprise, for example,a name for the entity. The entity reference system 100 may offer theuser to include an entity reference based on the identification of theuser mentioning an entity.

FIG. 3B illustrates an embodiment of a user interface 325 with an entityreference invocation 330. The entity reference invocation 330 is arecognized invocation of an entity reference. The entity referenceinvocation 330 may be visually indicated as having been recognized as aninvocation of an entity reference, such as though the use of aparticular visual style, which may include the use of a distinct color.The visual indication may be included in the text entry field to notifythe user that their composition include an entity reference. The entityreference invocation 330 may have been added to the composition field ofthe messaging client in response to a user selecting a suggested entityfrom a display of a plurality of suggested entities 305.

FIG. 4A illustrates an embodiment of a user interface 400 with an entityreference display 405.

The client device 420 may correspond to the same client device 320 asused to compose an entity reference or may correspond to another clientdevice, such as may be used by a different participant in the messagethread.

The user interface 400 for a message thread may include compositioncontrols 415 that are persistently visible during the display of amessage thread. Many, most, or nearly all of the composition controls415 may empower access to further user interface controls for theperformance of various tasks, such as text entry, media selection, emojiselection, camera use, a social approval icon, etc.

The user interface 400 may comprise a user interface for a messagethread. At least a portion of the message exchange for the messagethread may be displayed in a message thread interaction display 410. Amessage thread interaction display 410 may comprise a display of one ormore messages exchanged by the users of the message thread. The featuresdiscussed with regards to a message thread may be applied to eitherone-on-one message threads or group message threads.

An entity reference display 405 is included in the message threadinteraction display 410 when the entity reference is added to themessage thread. The entity reference display 405 is a message display,one of a plurality of message displays that may be included in themessage thread interaction display 410. The entity reference display 405may include an entity-reference symbol to textually indicate that aportion of the text of the message comprising the entity reference is anentity reference. In some embodiments, the entity reference display 405may include the entity-reference symbol even where the entity-referencesymbol was not used by the composing user to invoke the creation of anentity reference, so as to textually communicate the existence of theentity reference. The entity reference may additionally or alternativelybe communicated using other techniques in the entity reference display405, such as by using a distinctive font, typeface, color, or otherelement.

FIG. 4B illustrates an embodiment of a user interface 425 with an entitycard 430.

In some embodiments, an entity card 430 may be displayed in response toa user selecting an entity reference display 405. For instance, theentity reference in a message may comprise an entity-card displaycontrol that, when selected, invokes the display of the entity card 430.In other embodiments, an entity card 430 may automatically be displayedas part of the entity reference display 420 for an entity reference,embedded within or appended to the message comprising the entityreference.

The entity card 430 may comprise a display of entity information 435 inan entity information display. The entity information 435 may include aname for the referenced entity, a picture for the referenced entity,relationship information for the referenced entity, connectioninformation for the referenced, or any other type of information for thereferenced entity.

The entity card 430 may comprise one or more entity controls 440. Entitycontrols 440 may empower a user to interact with the referenced entityin various ways. The entity controls 440 may include a message-sendcontrol, a profile-view control, a free-call control, an edit-nicknamecontrol, or any other type of control that may related to a referencedentity.

FIG. 5 illustrates an embodiment of an entity reference system 100processing a message 510 into an augmented message 515 with anaugmentation element 550.

A messaging system may comprise a plurality of components. In someembodiments, these plurality of components may be distributed among aplurality of servers. In other embodiments, a single server mayimplement the plurality of components. In some embodiments, a pluralityof servers may be executed by a single server device. In otherembodiments, the plurality of servers may be executed by a plurality ofserver devices. In some embodiments, multiple instances of the variouscomponents and various servers may be executed to provide redundancy,improved scaling, and other benefits. Similarly, a client device mayexecute a plurality of components as part of a messaging client.

A client device may communicate with other devices using wirelesstransmissions to exchange network traffic. Exchanging network traffic,such as may be included in the exchange of messaging transactions, maycomprise transmitting and receiving network traffic via a networkinterface controller (NIC). A NIC comprises a hardware componentconnecting a computer device, such as client device, to a computernetwork. The NIC may be associated with a software network interfaceempowering software applications to access and use the NIC. Networktraffic may be received over the computer network as signals transmittedover data links. The network traffic may be received by capturing thesesignals and interpreting them. The NIC may receive network traffic overthe computer network and transfer the network traffic to memory storageaccessible to software applications using a network interfaceapplication programming interface (API). The network interfacecontroller may be used for the network activities of the embodimentsdescribed herein, including the interoperation of the messaging clientand messaging servers through network communication. For example, themessaging client transmitting or receiving messages to or from a clientfront-end server 535 may be interpreted as using the network interfacecontroller for network access to a communications network for thetransmission or reception of information.

A messaging client may comprise a user interface component 523. A userinterface component 523 may be generally arranged to display userinterfaces to a user of a client device and to receive user commands forthe messaging client for the client device. A messaging client maycomprise a client messaging component 526. A client messaging component526 may be generally arranged to conduct messaging interactions on thebehalf of the messaging client via communication with the clientfront-end server 535.

A client front-end server 535 may be generally arranged to act as anetwork access point to the messaging system for client devices such asa referencing client device 520. The client front-end server 535 maycomprise a messaging component 530, the messaging component 530generally arranged to act as a network access point to messagingservices for the messaging system. The messaging component 530 mayreceive messages from client devices and add the messages to messagequeues.

A message queue 580 may be specifically associated with the user of thereferencing client device 520, such as by being uniquely associatedwithin the messaging system with a user account for the user ofreferencing client device 520. The message queue 580 may be a singlequeue used for all messaging endpoints used by this user. The messagequeue 580 may comprise a representation of updates in a strict linearorder. The message queue 580 may be organized as a data unit accordingto a variety of techniques. The message queue 580 may be stored insemi-persistent memory, persistent storage, both semi-persistent memoryand persistent storage, or a combination of the two. The message queue580 may be organized according to a variety of data structures,including linked lists, arrays, and other techniques for organizingqueues. The message queue 580 may generally comprise afirst-in-first-out (FIFO) queue in which no update will be removed orretrieved from the queue before any updates that were received prior toit.

The messaging system may comprise one or more worker servers, such asworker server 545. In general, the messaging system may comprise aplurality of worker servers that may be assigned to various tasks. Insome embodiments, worker servers may be dynamically reassigned todifferent tasks as load on the messaging system changes. A worker server545 may comprise an entity reference component 540. The entity referencecomponent 540 may be generally arranged to manage entity referenceprediction, creation, and distribution on behalf of users of the entityreference system 100.

The user interface component 523 of the messaging client on areferencing client device 520 may receive user input from a user of thereferencing client device 520. The user interface component 523 maypredict an entity-reference invocation in a message thread display onthe referencing client device 520. In some cases, the user interfacecomponent 523 may predict the entity-reference invocation in response todetecting an entity-reference invocation symbol in a text-entry field ofthe messaging client. In some cases, the user interface component 523may predict the entity-reference invocation in response to detecting oneof an entity name and a partial entity name in a text-entry field of themessaging client.

The user interface component 523 may suggest one or more entities foruse in an entity-reference invocation in response to predicting theentity-reference invocation. The user interface component 523 mayreceive an entity text segment via a text-entry field and suggest theone or more entities based on the entity text segment. For instance, theentity reference system 100 may match the entity text segment againstknown entities, such as may be represented in a social graph 200 for asocial-networking system. Matching entities may be selected and rankedaccording to context information for the messaging interaction in whichthe text segment was composed and the broader context for the composinguser. The selecting and ranking may be performed via coordinationbetween the user interface component 523 and the entity referencecomponent 540. For instance, the user interface component 523 mayiteratively update the entity reference component 540 once anentity-reference symbol is entered by the user, or when some othertechnique is used to predict an entity reference being invoked. Anentity text segment may be created character-by-character by the user,with the suggested entities repeatedly updated as each character isreceived, refining the name-match results as a referenced entity isfurther defined by the user.

The one or more entities may comprise one or more or two or more of auser entity, a person entity, a messaging bot entity, an article entity,a media entity, a calendar event entity, and a place entity. A userentity may comprise a user of the messaging system. A person entity maycomprise a person known to the entity reference system 100, which mayinclude both users of the messaging system and non-users of themessaging system, such as celebrities or other well-known people. Amessaging bot entity may comprise an automated program empowering accessto information, products, services, or other operations. An articleentity may correspond to, without limitation, a web article identifiedby a uniform resource locator (URL). A media entity may correspond to amedia item, such as may be shared via the messaging system. A calendarevent entity may correspond to an event recorded on a calendar, such asa calendar maintained by the messaging system. A place entity maycorrespond to a place, such as a location, as may include a businesslocation, known to the messaging system.

The one or more entities may correspond to one or more user accounts fora social-networking system. The message thread display may be for agroup message thread, where a group message thread comprises three ormore participants. The one or more entities may comprise one or moreuser entities for messaging contacts for a user account for thereferencing user. The one or more user entities may be ranked accordingto one or more of relationship information, messaging frequency, andreferencing frequency. Relationship information may comprise informationrelating to one or more relationships that may exist between two or moreusers, such as, without limitation, a shared place of education oremployment, specified registered interpersonal relationships (e.g., aregistered friendship, a registered romantic relationship, a registeredfamiliar relationship), or any other social relationship between users.Messaging frequency may represent the frequency with which two usersmessage each other. Referencing frequency may represent the frequencywith which the referencing user references the other user. An entity maybe ranked higher—displayed more prominently—where these signals are moresignificant between the referencing user and the one or more contacts.Each of these signals may be represented numerically and combined usinga function to produce a ranking score that is used to rank the contactsfor display.

The one or more entities may comprise one or more user entities forparticipants in the group message thread, wherein in the one or moreuser entities are ranked according to one or more of relationshipinformation, group-message-thread participation recency, messagingfrequency, and referencing frequency. The group-message-threadparticipation recency may be a measure of how recently the participantparticipated in (i.e., submitted a message to) the group message thread.An entity may be ranked higher—displayed more prominently—where thesesignals are more significant between the referencing user and the one ormore participants. Each of these signals may be represented numericallyand combined using a function to produce a ranking score that is used torank the participants for display. Both participants and contacts may beranked with each other using their respective ranking scores. Someentities may be both contacts and participants, and as such may only beincluded once in the display of suggested entities.

In some embodiments, predicative learning may be used to rank suggestedentities. The entity-reference invocation is associated with a invokinguser account and the one or more entities are ranked according topredicative learning. The predicative learning may be based on anentity-reference history for the invoking user account. Various signalsrelating to the context of the entity-reference invocation may begathered and used to rank the suggested entities based on a functioncombining the signals determined according to machine learning based onthe entity-reference history for the invoking user account.

The client messaging component 526 receives the entity-referenceinvocation, the entity-reference invocation comprising an entityreference. This entity reference may correspond to one of the suggestedentities. The client messaging component 526 then generates a message510 comprising the entity reference sends the message to a messagingsystem, such as via the messaging component 530. The message 510 mayreference the entity using an entity identifier, such as may be used toidentify the entity in a social graph 200.

The messaging component 530 receives the message 510 from thereferencing client device 520. The messaging component 530 determines areceiving user account for the message, such as based on a threadidentifier and a registration of the participants in the message threadidentified by the thread identifier. The messaging component 530 addsthe message 510 to a message queue 580 for distribution to one or moreother client devices 590, 595.

The entity reference component 540 selects an augmentation element 550associated with the entity reference and generates an augmented entityreference by augmenting the entity reference with the augmentationelement. The augmented entity reference produces an augmented message515. In some embodiments, the augmentation element 550 may be providedto the referencing client device 520 so that the augmentation elementcan be included with the outgoing message 510 from the referencingclient device 520. The augmentation element provides information and/orcontrols relating to the entity reference empowering richer interactionwith the reference.

The messaging component 530 then sends the augmented entity reference toone or more receiving client devices associated with the receiving useraccount. The augmented message 515 may be sent to a referenced clientdevice 590, the referenced client device 590 used by a user referencedby the entity reference. The augmented message may be sent to aparticipant client device 595, where the participant client device 595is used by a participant in the message thread, whether or not theparticipant is mentioned by the entity reference. Where an entityreference is to someone or something other than a participant in themessage thread, there may be no referenced client device 590. However,in some cases, a referenced user may be notified that they werereferenced even where they are not a participant, such as where they arereferenced in a public group message thread.

The entity reference component 540 may select the augmentation element550 associated with the entity reference based on the entity referencebeing associated with a distinct entity from a receiving user entity forthe receiving user account. A particular augmentation element 550, orplurality of augmentation elements, may be used where a recipient of theentity referenced isn't themselves being referenced. For instance, acontrol to add a referenced user as a friend or contact, or a control tomessage a referenced user, may be selectively used where the receivinguser isn't themselves being referenced (to avoid a user being offeredthe option to message themselves). The entity reference component 540may select the augmentation element 550 associated with the entityreference based on social-networking information for the receiving useraccount. For instance, one or more augmentation elements may be includedthat include relationship information between a referenced user and areceiving user. This social-networking information may only be usedwhere the receiving user isn't themselves being referenced to avoidattempting to inform a user about themselves.

In some instances, the entity reference corresponding to an articleentity, in response to which the entity reference component 540 mayselect an article preview for the article entity as the augmentationelement 550. In some instances, the entity reference may correspond to amedia entity, in response to which the entity reference component 540may select a media preview for the media entity as the augmentationelement 550.

In some instances, the entity reference corresponding to a locationentity, in response to which the entity reference component 540 mayselect a location page preview as the augmentation element 550 and a mapview as a second augmentation element. The entity reference component540 generates the augmented entity reference by augmenting the entityreference with the augmentation element 550 and the second augmentationelement.

In some instances, the entity reference may correspond to a user entity,in response to which the entity reference component 540 may select oneor more user information items as the augmentation element 550. The oneor more user information items may comprise one or more of a user namefor the user entity, a user nickname for the user entity, a profile itemfor the user entity, a user page item for the user entity, a userrelationship indicator for the user entity, a user connection for theuser entity, and a user association for the user entity. A user nicknamemay be customized by another user as a personal identifier for the user.A profile item for a user entity may comprise, for example, a photo ofthe user. A user relationship may comprise a registered relationshipwith a user, such as a friendship or romantic relationship. A userconnection may comprise a common friend of the receiving user and thereferenced user, or a counter of the number of common friends betweenthe receiving user and the referenced user. A user association of theuser entity may comprise, without limitation, a place of employment, aplace of education, or any other associations a user may have.

In some cases, the entity reference may correspond to a user entity. Inresponse, the entity reference component 540 may select one or more usercontrols as the augmentation element 550. The one or more user controlsmay comprise one or more of a group-invitation control, a contact-addcontrol, a friend-add control, a message-composition control, aview-profile control, an audio call control, a nickname-editing control,and a reply-to control. A group-invitation control may empower invitinga referenced user to a group message thread. A contact-add control mayempower adding a referenced user as a contact with the messaging system.A friend-add control may empower adding a user as a friend with asocial-networking system. A message-composition control may empower thecomposition of a message to the referenced user in a one-on-one messagethread. A view-profile control may empower the viewing of a profile forthe referenced user. An audio-call control may empower the initiation ofan audio call to the referenced user. A nickname-editing control mayempower the setting of a nickname for the referenced user. A reply-tocontrol may empower the sending of a reply message in the message threadin reply to the message 510 referencing the referenced user. Othercontrols may be used, without limitation.

The message 510 may be associated with a message thread. The entityreference component 540 may select the one or more user informationitems in response to one of the message being a first reference for theentity reference for the message thread and a reference-recency for theentity reference for the message thread exceeding a predefinedthreshold. As such, an entity reference may only be augmented withadditional information or controls where the referenced entity hasn'trecently been referenced in the message thread according to a predefinedthreshold for recency.

A client messaging component 526 on a recipient client device mayreceive the augmented message 515. The recipient client device isassociated with a recipient user account. The message 515 messagecomprising the entity reference. The augmented message 515 is addressedto a message thread, with the recipient user account a participant inthe message thread. The user interface component 523 on the recipientclient device extracts an augmentation element 550 for the entityreference from the message and displays the augmentation element 550 ina message thread display for the message thread on the recipient clientdevice. In some cases, the entity reference may be associated with therecipient user account, such as by referencing the user of the recipientclient device. In these cases, the recipient client device correspondsto the referenced client device 590.

In some embodiments, the messaging component 530 may increase amessaging coefficient between the recipient user account and a senderuser account in response to the sender user account sending theaugmented message 515 comprising the entity reference to the recipientuser account. The messaging coefficient reflects a determined messagingrelationship between two users, which may be used, without limitation,to recommend users to each other for messaging, referencing, or othertasks. In general, mutual participation in a group message thread mayincrease the messaging coefficient between two user accounts, such as bya defined mutual-participation amount. The increase to the messagingcoefficient for a reference may be higher than for mutual participation,so as to reflect the greater implied relationship of one userreferencing another than mere mutual participation in a group messagethread.

The user interface component 523 may position the message thread displayat the augmentation element 550 based on the entity reference beingassociated with the recipient user account. For instance, where amessage thread display is opened on the recipient client device, themessage thread display may be automatically scrolled to display theaugmented message 515 and its augmentation element 550.

The user interface component 523 may display a mention-navigationcontrol in association with the message thread display. Themention-navigation control empowers navigation between one or more ofentity references to the recipient user account, so as to allow a userto skip through a message thread to mentions of themselves. In someembodiments, the mention-navigation control also empowers navigation totext segments corresponding to one or more names for the recipient useraccount, such that the mention-navigation control empowers navigationbetween one or more of entity references to the recipient user accountand the text segments corresponding to one or more names for therecipient user account. The user may therefore skip through a messagethread to all mentions of themselves, whether formalized as entityreferences or not. The one or more names may comprise a real name andone or more nicknames. The one or more nicknames may be drawn from oneor more client devices. As such, nicknames assigned by a plurality ofusers for use on a plurality of client devices may be sent to thereferenced client device 590 so that the user interface component 523can navigate between mentions that are based on the various nicknamesdifferent users may have for the referenced user.

Notifications may be used to notify users that they have been mentioned.The referenced client device 590 may receive a notification for theaugmented message 515 from the messaging system, the notification forthe message indicating that the entity reference is associated with therecipient user account. The notification for the augmented message 515may indicate that the entity reference is associated with the recipientuser account based on one or more of an entity-reference-specific textsegment, an entity-reference-specific icon, an entity-reference-specificsound, and an entity-reference-specific haptic signal.

In some cases, the message thread is a public group message thread,wherein the notification is received in response to recipient useraccount being mentioned in the public group message thread. Thisnotification may be done even where the referenced user isn't aparticipant in the public group message thread. This may be selectivelydone only where the group message thread is a public group messagethread and not for private group message threads, so as to avoidnotifying users that they have been mentioned in a message thread towhich they don't have access.

A display of a group message thread in an inbox view may include apreview of the contents of the message thread. In some cases, amost-recent message for the message thread may be used for the previewof the message thread. However, where a user has a reference to them inthe message thread, or specifically where a user has an unread referenceto them in the message thread, a preview of the message 510 includingthe entity reference may be used as the preview of the message threadeven where the message 510 including the reference to the user is notthe most-recent message. As such, the use of a message 510 with anentity reference may be selectively be used as the message threadpreview where the entity reference is a reference to the viewing usereven where the entity reference is not part of the most-recent messagefor the message thread.

Some users may wish to deactivate notification for a group messagethread, for example, without limitation, a particular busy group messagethread that they aren't particularly active in. However, such users maystill desire to be notified if they are specifically mentioned in thegroup message thread. This may aid the user in learning when a groupmessage thread has become more relevant to them. This may aid otherparticipants in the group message thread in drawing a participant backto the message thread. As such, the user interface component 523 mayreceive a notification-deactivation command in association with themessage thread, display a reference-notification dialog in response tothe notification-deactivation command, receive a user command inresponse to the reference-notification dialog, and display thenotification where the user command indicates reference notification. Insome embodiments, notification management may be performed by themessaging servers of the messaging system, such that the user interfacecomponent notifies the messaging servers to only send notifications forthe group message thread where they contain references to the user.

Included herein is a set of flow charts representative of exemplarymethodologies for performing novel aspects of the disclosedarchitecture. While, for purposes of simplicity of explanation, the oneor more methodologies shown herein, for example, in the form of a flowchart or flow diagram, are shown and described as a series of acts, itis to be understood and appreciated that the methodologies are notlimited by the order of acts, as some acts may, in accordance therewith,occur in a different order and/or concurrently with other acts from thatshown and described herein. For example, those skilled in the art willunderstand and appreciate that a methodology could alternatively berepresented as a series of interrelated states or events, such as in astate diagram. Moreover, not all acts illustrated in a methodology maybe required for a novel implementation.

FIG. 6A illustrates one embodiment of a logic flow 600. The logic flow600 may be representative of some or all of the operations executed byone or more embodiments described herein.

In the illustrated embodiment shown in FIG. 6A, the logic flow 600 maypredict an entity-reference invocation in a message thread display on aclient device at block 602.

The logic flow 600 may suggest one or more entities for use in theentity-reference invocation in response to predicting theentity-reference invocation at block 604.

The logic flow 600 may receive the entity-reference invocation, theentity-reference invocation comprising an entity reference at block 606.

The logic flow 600 may generate a message comprising the entityreference at block 608.

The logic flow 600 may send the message to a messaging system at block610.

FIG. 6B illustrates one embodiment of a logic flow 620. The logic flow620 may be representative of some or all of the operations executed byone or more embodiments described herein.

In the illustrated embodiment shown in FIG. 6B, the logic flow 620 mayreceive a message at a recipient client device from a messaging system,the recipient client device associated with a recipient user account,the message comprising an entity reference, the message addressed to amessage thread at block 622.

The logic flow 620 may extract an augmentation element for the entityreference from the message at block 624.

The logic flow 620 may display the augmentation element in a messagethread display for the message thread on the recipient client device atblock 626.

FIG. 6C illustrates one embodiment of a logic flow 640. The logic flow640 may be representative of some or all of the operations executed byone or more embodiments described herein.

In the illustrated embodiment shown in FIG. 6C, the logic flow 640 mayreceive a message from a referencing client device at a messagingsystem, the message comprising an entity reference at block 642.

The logic flow 640 may determine a receiving user account for themessage at block 644.

The logic flow 640 may select an augmentation element associated withthe entity reference at block 646.

The logic flow 640 may generate an augmented entity reference byaugmenting the entity reference with the augmentation element at block648.

The logic flow 640 may send the augmented entity reference to one ormore receiving client devices associated with the receiving user accountat block 650.

The embodiments are not limited to these examples.

FIG. 7 illustrates a block diagram of a centralized system 700. Thecentralized system 700 may implement some or all of the structure and/oroperations for the entity reference system 100 in a single computingentity, such as entirely within a single centralized server device 720.

The centralized server device 720 may comprise any electronic devicecapable of receiving, processing, and sending information for themessaging flow visualization media distribution system 100. Examples ofan electronic device may include without limitation an ultra-mobiledevice, a mobile device, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a mobilecomputing device, a smart phone, a telephone, a digital telephone, acellular telephone, ebook readers, a handset, a one-way pager, a two-waypager, a messaging device, a computer, a personal computer (PC), adesktop computer, a laptop computer, a notebook computer, a netbookcomputer, a handheld computer, a tablet computer, a server, a serverarray or server farm, a web server, a network server, an Internetserver, a work station, a mini-computer, a main frame computer, asupercomputer, a network appliance, a web appliance, a distributedcomputing system, multiprocessor systems, processor-based systems,consumer electronics, programmable consumer electronics, game devices,television, digital television, set top box, wireless access point, basestation, subscriber station, mobile subscriber center, radio networkcontroller, router, hub, gateway, bridge, switch, machine, orcombination thereof. The embodiments are not limited in this context.

The centralized server device 720 may execute processing operations orlogic for the entity reference system 100 using a processing component730. The processing component 730 may comprise various hardwareelements, software elements, or a combination of both. Examples ofhardware elements may include devices, logic devices, components,processors, microprocessors, circuits, processor circuits, circuitelements (e.g., transistors, resistors, capacitors, inductors, and soforth), integrated circuits, application specific integrated circuits(ASIC), programmable logic devices (PLD), digital signal processors(DSP), field programmable gate array (FPGA), memory units, logic gates,registers, semiconductor device, chips, microchips, chip sets, and soforth. Examples of software elements may include software components,programs, applications, computer programs, application programs, systemprograms, software development programs, machine programs, operatingsystem software, middleware, firmware, software modules, routines,subroutines, functions, methods, procedures, software interfaces,application program interfaces (API), instruction sets, computing code,computer code, code segments, computer code segments, words, values,symbols, or any combination thereof. Determining whether an embodimentis implemented using hardware elements and/or software elements may varyin accordance with any number of factors, such as desired computationalrate, power levels, heat tolerances, processing cycle budget, input datarates, output data rates, memory resources, data bus speeds and otherdesign or performance constraints, as desired for a givenimplementation.

The centralized server device 720 may execute communications operationsor logic for the entity reference system 100 using communicationscomponent 740. The communications component 740 may implement anywell-known communications techniques and protocols, such as techniquessuitable for use with packet-switched networks (e.g., public networkssuch as the Internet, private networks such as an enterprise intranet,and so forth), circuit-switched networks (e.g., the public switchedtelephone network), or a combination of packet-switched networks andcircuit-switched networks (with suitable gateways and translators). Thecommunications component 740 may include various types of standardcommunication elements, such as one or more communications interfaces,network interfaces, network interface cards (NIC), radios, wirelesstransmitters/receivers (transceivers), wired and/or wirelesscommunication media, physical connectors, and so forth. By way ofexample, and not limitation, communication media 712 includes wiredcommunications media and wireless communications media. Examples ofwired communications media may include a wire, cable, metal leads,printed circuit boards (PCB), backplanes, switch fabrics, semiconductormaterial, twisted-pair wire, co-axial cable, fiber optics, a propagatedsignal, and so forth. Examples of wireless communications media mayinclude acoustic, radio-frequency (RF) spectrum, infrared and otherwireless media.

The centralized server device 720 may communicate with other devicesover a communications media 712 using communications signals 714 via thecommunications component 740. The devices may be internal or external tothe centralized server device 720 as desired for a given implementation.

The centralized server device 720 may execute a messaging server 750.The messaging server 750 may comprise a messaging server for a messagingsystem. The messaging server 750 may provide messaging operations for aplurality of client devices 710, receiving and sending messages betweenthe client devices 710. The client devices 710 may correspond to one ormore of a smartphone device 150, tablet device 160, personal computerdevice 170, and/or any other client device.

FIG. 8 illustrates a block diagram of a distributed system 800. Thedistributed system 800 may distribute portions of the structure and/oroperations for the entity reference system 100 across multiple computingentities. Examples of distributed system 800 may include withoutlimitation a client-server architecture, a 3-tier architecture, anN-tier architecture, a tightly-coupled or clustered architecture, apeer-to-peer architecture, a master-slave architecture, a shareddatabase architecture, and other types of distributed systems. Theembodiments are not limited in this context.

The distributed system 800 may comprise a plurality of distributedserver devices 820. In general, the distributed server devices 820 maybe the same or similar to the centralized server device 720 as describedwith reference to FIG. 7. For instance, the distributed server devices820 may each comprise a processing component 830 and a communicationscomponent 840 which are the same or similar to the processing component730 and the communications component 740, respectively, as describedwith reference to FIG. 7. In another example, the distributed serverdevices 820 may communicate over a communications media 812 usingcommunications signals 814 via the communications components 840.

The distributed server devices 820 may comprise or employ one or moreserver programs that operate to perform various methodologies inaccordance with the described embodiments. In one embodiment, forexample, the distributed server devices 820 may each execute one of aplurality of messaging servers 850. The messaging servers 850 maycomprise messaging servers for a messaging system 110. The messagingservers 850 may provide messaging operations for a plurality of clientdevices 810, receiving and sending messages between the client devices810. The client devices 810 may correspond to one or more of asmartphone device 150, tablet device 160, personal computer device 180,and/or any other client device.

FIG. 9 illustrates an embodiment of an exemplary computing architecture900 suitable for implementing various embodiments as previouslydescribed. In one embodiment, the computing architecture 900 maycomprise or be implemented as part of an electronic device. Examples ofan electronic device may include those described with reference to FIG.8, among others. The embodiments are not limited in this context.

As used in this application, the terms “system” and “component” areintended to refer to a computer-related entity, either hardware, acombination of hardware and software, software, or software inexecution, examples of which are provided by the exemplary computingarchitecture 900. For example, a component can be, but is not limited tobeing, a process running on a processor, a processor, a hard disk drive,multiple storage drives (of optical and/or magnetic storage medium), anobject, an executable, a thread of execution, a program, and/or acomputer. By way of illustration, both an application running on aserver and the server can be a component. One or more components canreside within a process and/or thread of execution, and a component canbe localized on one computer and/or distributed between two or morecomputers. Further, components may be communicatively coupled to eachother by various types of communications media to coordinate operations.The coordination may involve the uni-directional or bi-directionalexchange of information. For instance, the components may communicateinformation in the form of signals communicated over the communicationsmedia. The information can be implemented as signals allocated tovarious signal lines. In such allocations, each message is a signal.Further embodiments, however, may alternatively employ data messages.Such data messages may be sent across various connections. Exemplaryconnections include parallel interfaces, serial interfaces, and businterfaces.

The computing architecture 900 includes various common computingelements, such as one or more processors, multi-core processors,co-processors, memory units, chipsets, controllers, peripherals,interfaces, oscillators, timing devices, video cards, audio cards,multimedia input/output (I/O) components, power supplies, and so forth.The embodiments, however, are not limited to implementation by thecomputing architecture 900.

As shown in FIG. 9, the computing architecture 900 comprises aprocessing unit 904, a system memory 906 and a system bus 908. Theprocessing unit 904 can be any of various commercially availableprocessors, including without limitation an AMD® Athlon®, Duron® andOpteron® processors; ARM® application, embedded and secure processors;IBM® and Motorola® DragonBall® and PowerPC® processors; IBM and Sony®Cell processors; Intel® Celeron®, Core (2) Duo®, Itanium®, Pentium®,Xeon®, and XScale® processors; and similar processors. Dualmicroprocessors, multi-core processors, and other multi-processorarchitectures may also be employed as the processing unit 904.

The system bus 908 provides an interface for system componentsincluding, but not limited to, the system memory 906 to the processingunit 904. The system bus 908 can be any of several types of busstructure that may further interconnect to a memory bus (with or withouta memory controller), a peripheral bus, and a local bus using any of avariety of commercially available bus architectures. Interface adaptersmay connect to the system bus 908 via a slot architecture. Example slotarchitectures may include without limitation Accelerated Graphics Port(AGP), Card Bus, (Extended) Industry Standard Architecture ((E)ISA),Micro Channel Architecture (MCA), NuBus, Peripheral ComponentInterconnect (Extended) (PCI(X)), PCI Express, Personal Computer MemoryCard International Association (PCMCIA), and the like.

The computing architecture 900 may comprise or implement variousarticles of manufacture. An article of manufacture may comprise acomputer-readable storage medium to store logic. Examples of acomputer-readable storage medium may include any tangible media capableof storing electronic data, including volatile memory or non-volatilememory, removable or non-removable memory, erasable or non-erasablememory, writeable or re-writeable memory, and so forth. Examples oflogic may include executable computer program instructions implementedusing any suitable type of code, such as source code, compiled code,interpreted code, executable code, static code, dynamic code,object-oriented code, visual code, and the like. Embodiments may also beat least partly implemented as instructions contained in or on anon-transitory computer-readable medium, which may be read and executedby one or more processors to enable performance of the operationsdescribed herein.

The system memory 906 may include various types of computer-readablestorage media in the form of one or more higher speed memory units, suchas read-only memory (ROM), random-access memory (RAM), dynamic RAM(DRAM), Double-Data-Rate DRAM (DDRAM), synchronous DRAM (SDRAM), staticRAM (SRAM), programmable ROM (PROM), erasable programmable ROM (EPROM),electrically erasable programmable ROM (EEPROM), flash memory, polymermemory such as ferroelectric polymer memory, ovonic memory, phase changeor ferroelectric memory, silicon-oxide-nitride-oxide-silicon (SONOS)memory, magnetic or optical cards, an array of devices such as RedundantArray of Independent Disks (RAID) drives, solid state memory devices(e.g., USB memory, solid state drives (SSD) and any other type ofstorage media suitable for storing information. In the illustratedembodiment shown in FIG. 9, the system memory 906 can includenon-volatile memory 910 and/or volatile memory 912. A basic input/outputsystem (BIOS) can be stored in the non-volatile memory 910.

The computer 902 may include various types of computer-readable storagemedia in the form of one or more lower speed memory units, including aninternal (or external) hard disk drive (HDD) 914, a magnetic floppy diskdrive (FDD) 916 to read from or write to a removable magnetic disk 918,and an optical disk drive 920 to read from or write to a removableoptical disk 922 (e.g., a CD-ROM or DVD). The HDD 914, FDD 916 andoptical disk drive 920 can be connected to the system bus 908 by a HDDinterface 924, an FDD interface 926 and an optical drive interface 928,respectively. The HDD interface 924 for external drive implementationscan include at least one or both of Universal Serial Bus (USB) and IEEE1394 interface technologies.

The drives and associated computer-readable media provide volatileand/or nonvolatile storage of data, data structures, computer-executableinstructions, and so forth. For example, a number of program modules canbe stored in the drives and memory units 910, 912, including anoperating system 930, one or more application programs 932, otherprogram modules 934, and program data 936. In one embodiment, the one ormore application programs 932, other program modules 934, and programdata 936 can include, for example, the various applications and/orcomponents of the media distribution system 100.

A user can enter commands and information into the computer 902 throughone or more wire/wireless input devices, for example, a keyboard 938 anda pointing device, such as a mouse 940. Other input devices may includemicrophones, infra-red (IR) remote controls, radio-frequency (RF) remotecontrols, game pads, stylus pens, card readers, dongles, finger printreaders, gloves, graphics tablets, joysticks, keyboards, retina readers,touch screens (e.g., capacitive, resistive, etc.), trackballs,trackpads, sensors, styluses, and the like. These and other inputdevices are often connected to the processing unit 904 through an inputdevice interface 942 that is coupled to the system bus 908, but can beconnected by other interfaces such as a parallel port, IEEE 1394 serialport, a game port, a USB port, an IR interface, and so forth.

A monitor 944 or other type of display device is also connected to thesystem bus 908 via an interface, such as a video adaptor 946. Themonitor 944 may be internal or external to the computer 902. In additionto the monitor 944, a computer typically includes other peripheraloutput devices, such as speakers, printers, and so forth.

The computer 902 may operate in a networked environment using logicalconnections via wire and/or wireless communications to one or moreremote computers, such as a remote computer 948. The remote computer 948can be a workstation, a server computer, a router, a personal computer,portable computer, microprocessor-based entertainment appliance, a peerdevice or other common network node, and typically includes many or allof the elements described relative to the computer 902, although, forpurposes of brevity, only a memory/storage device 950 is illustrated.The logical connections depicted include wire/wireless connectivity to alocal area network (LAN) 952 and/or larger networks, for example, a widearea network (WAN) 954. Such LAN and WAN networking environments arecommonplace in offices and companies, and facilitate enterprise-widecomputer networks, such as intranets, all of which may connect to aglobal communications network, for example, the Internet.

When used in a LAN networking environment, the computer 902 is connectedto the LAN 952 through a wire and/or wireless communication networkinterface or adaptor 956. The adaptor 956 can facilitate wire and/orwireless communications to the LAN 952, which may also include awireless access point disposed thereon for communicating with thewireless functionality of the adaptor 956.

When used in a WAN networking environment, the computer 902 can includea modem 958, or is connected to a communications server on the WAN 954,or has other means for establishing communications over the WAN 954,such as by way of the Internet. The modem 958, which can be internal orexternal and a wire and/or wireless device, connects to the system bus908 via the input device interface 942. In a networked environment,program modules depicted relative to the computer 902, or portionsthereof, can be stored in the remote memory/storage device 950. It willbe appreciated that the network connections shown are exemplary andother means of establishing a communications link between the computerscan be used.

The computer 902 is operable to communicate with wire and wirelessdevices or entities using the IEEE 802 family of standards, such aswireless devices operatively disposed in wireless communication (e.g.,IEEE 802.11 over-the-air modulation techniques). This includes at leastWi-Fi (or Wireless Fidelity), WiMax, and Bluetooth™ wirelesstechnologies, among others. Thus, the communication can be a predefinedstructure as with a conventional network or simply an ad hoccommunication between at least two devices. Wi-Fi networks use radiotechnologies called IEEE 802.11x (a, b, g, n, etc.) to provide secure,reliable, fast wireless connectivity. A Wi-Fi network can be used toconnect computers to each other, to the Internet, and to wire networks(which use IEEE 802.3-related media and functions).

FIG. 10 illustrates a block diagram of an exemplary communicationsarchitecture 1000 suitable for implementing various embodiments aspreviously described. The communications architecture 1000 includesvarious common communications elements, such as a transmitter, receiver,transceiver, radio, network interface, baseband processor, antenna,amplifiers, filters, power supplies, and so forth. The embodiments,however, are not limited to implementation by the communicationsarchitecture 1000.

As shown in FIG. 10, the communications architecture 1000 comprisesincludes one or more clients 1002 and servers 1004. The clients 1002 mayimplement the messaging clients of various client devices. The servers1004 may implement messaging servers 110. The clients 1002 and theservers 1004 are operatively connected to one or more respective clientdata stores 1008 and server data stores 1010 that can be employed tostore information local to the respective clients 1002 and servers 1004,such as cookies and/or associated contextual information.

The clients 1002 and the servers 1004 may communicate informationbetween each other using a communication framework 1006. Thecommunications framework 1006 may implement any well-knowncommunications techniques and protocols. The communications framework1006 may be implemented as a packet-switched network (e.g., publicnetworks such as the Internet, private networks such as an enterpriseintranet, and so forth), a circuit-switched network (e.g., the publicswitched telephone network), or a combination of a packet-switchednetwork and a circuit-switched network (with suitable gateways andtranslators).

The communications framework 1006 may implement various networkinterfaces arranged to accept, communicate, and connect to acommunications network. A network interface may be regarded as aspecialized form of an input output interface. Network interfaces mayemploy connection protocols including without limitation direct connect,Ethernet (e.g., thick, thin, twisted pair 10/100/1000 Base T, and thelike), token ring, wireless network interfaces, cellular networkinterfaces, IEEE 802.11a-x network interfaces, IEEE 802.16 networkinterfaces, IEEE 802.20 network interfaces, and the like. Further,multiple network interfaces may be used to engage with variouscommunications network types. For example, multiple network interfacesmay be employed to allow for the communication over broadcast,multicast, and unicast networks. Should processing requirements dictatea greater amount speed and capacity, distributed network controllerarchitectures may similarly be employed to pool, load balance, andotherwise increase the communicative bandwidth required by clients 1002and the servers 1004. A communications network may be any one and thecombination of wired and/or wireless networks including withoutlimitation a direct interconnection, a secured custom connection, aprivate network (e.g., an enterprise intranet), a public network (e.g.,the Internet), a Personal Area Network (PAN), a Local Area Network(LAN), a Metropolitan Area Network (MAN), an Operating Missions as Nodeson the Internet (OMNI), a Wide Area Network (WAN), a wireless network, acellular network, and other communications networks.

FIG. 11 illustrates an embodiment of a device 1100 for use in amulticarrier OFDM system, such as the media distribution system 100.Device 1100 may implement, for example, software components 1160 asdescribed with reference to media distribution system 100 and/or a logiccircuit 1135. The logic circuit 1135 may include physical circuits toperform operations described for the media distribution system 100. Asshown in FIG. 11, device 1100 may include a radio interface 1110,baseband circuitry 1120, and computing platform 1130, althoughembodiments are not limited to this configuration.

The device 1100 may implement some or all of the structure and/oroperations for the media distribution system 100 and/or logic circuit1135 in a single computing entity, such as entirely within a singledevice. Alternatively, the device 1100 may distribute portions of thestructure and/or operations for the media distribution system 100 and/orlogic circuit 1135 across multiple computing entities using adistributed system architecture, such as a client-server architecture, a3-tier architecture, an N-tier architecture, a tightly-coupled orclustered architecture, a peer-to-peer architecture, a master-slavearchitecture, a shared database architecture, and other types ofdistributed systems. The embodiments are not limited in this context.

In one embodiment, radio interface 1110 may include a component orcombination of components adapted for transmitting and/or receivingsingle carrier or multi-carrier modulated signals (e.g., includingcomplementary code keying (CCK) and/or orthogonal frequency divisionmultiplexing (OFDM) symbols) although the embodiments are not limited toany specific over-the-air interface or modulation scheme. Radiointerface 1110 may include, for example, a receiver 1112, a transmitter1116 and/or a frequency synthesizer 1114. Radio interface 1110 mayinclude bias controls, a crystal oscillator and/or one or more antennas1118. In another embodiment, radio interface 1110 may use externalvoltage-controlled oscillators (VCOs), surface acoustic wave filters,intermediate frequency (IF) filters and/or RF filters, as desired. Dueto the variety of potential RF interface designs an expansivedescription thereof is omitted.

Baseband circuitry 1120 may communicate with radio interface 1110 toprocess receive and/or transmit signals and may include, for example, ananalog-to-digital converter 1122 for down converting received signals, adigital-to-analog converter 1124 for up converting signals fortransmission. Further, baseband circuitry 1120 may include a baseband orphysical layer (PHY) processing circuit 1156 for PHY link layerprocessing of respective receive/transmit signals. Baseband circuitry1120 may include, for example, a processing circuit 1128 for mediumaccess control (MAC)/data link layer processing. Baseband circuitry 1120may include a memory controller 1132 for communicating with processingcircuit 1128 and/or a computing platform 1130, for example, via one ormore interfaces 1134.

In some embodiments, PHY processing circuit 1126 may include a frameconstruction and/or detection module, in combination with additionalcircuitry such as a buffer memory, to construct and/or deconstructcommunication frames, such as radio frames. Alternatively or inaddition, MAC processing circuit 1128 may share processing for certainof these functions or perform these processes independent of PHYprocessing circuit 1126. In some embodiments, MAC and PHY processing maybe integrated into a single circuit.

The computing platform 1130 may provide computing functionality for thedevice 1100. As shown, the computing platform 1130 may include aprocessing component 1140. In addition to, or alternatively of, thebaseband circuitry 1120, the device 1100 may execute processingoperations or logic for the media distribution system 100 and logiccircuit 1135 using the processing component 1140. The processingcomponent 1140 (and/or PHY 1126 and/or MAC 1128) may comprise varioushardware elements, software elements, or a combination of both. Examplesof hardware elements may include devices, logic devices, components,processors, microprocessors, circuits, processor circuits, circuitelements (e.g., transistors, resistors, capacitors, inductors, and soforth), integrated circuits, application specific integrated circuits(ASIC), programmable logic devices (PLD), digital signal processors(DSP), field programmable gate array (FPGA), memory units, logic gates,registers, semiconductor device, chips, microchips, chip sets, and soforth. Examples of software elements may include software components,programs, applications, computer programs, application programs, systemprograms, software development programs, machine programs, operatingsystem software, middleware, firmware, software modules, routines,subroutines, functions, methods, procedures, software interfaces,application program interfaces (API), instruction sets, computing code,computer code, code segments, computer code segments, words, values,symbols, or any combination thereof. Determining whether an embodimentis implemented using hardware elements and/or software elements may varyin accordance with any number of factors, such as desired computationalrate, power levels, heat tolerances, processing cycle budget, input datarates, output data rates, memory resources, data bus speeds and otherdesign or performance constraints, as desired for a givenimplementation.

The computing platform 1130 may further include other platformcomponents 1150. Other platform components 1150 include common computingelements, such as one or more processors, multi-core processors,co-processors, memory units, chipsets, controllers, peripherals,interfaces, oscillators, timing devices, video cards, audio cards,multimedia input/output (I/O) components (e.g., digital displays), powersupplies, and so forth. Examples of memory units may include withoutlimitation various types of computer readable and machine readablestorage media in the form of one or more higher speed memory units, suchas read-only memory (ROM), random-access memory (RAM), dynamic RAM(DRAM), Double-Data-Rate DRAM (DDRAM), synchronous DRAM (SDRAM), staticRAM (SRAM), programmable ROM (PROM), erasable programmable ROM (EPROM),electrically erasable programmable ROM (EEPROM), flash memory, polymermemory such as ferroelectric polymer memory, ovonic memory, phase changeor ferroelectric memory, silicon-oxide-nitride-oxide-silicon (SONOS)memory, magnetic or optical cards, an array of devices such as RedundantArray of Independent Disks (RAID) drives, solid state memory devices(e.g., USB memory, solid state drives (SSD) and any other type ofstorage media suitable for storing information.

Device 1100 may be, for example, an ultra-mobile device, a mobiledevice, a fixed device, a machine-to-machine (M2M) device, a personaldigital assistant (PDA), a mobile computing device, a smart phone, atelephone, a digital telephone, a cellular telephone, user equipment,eBook readers, a handset, a one-way pager, a two-way pager, a messagingdevice, a computer, a personal computer (PC), a desktop computer, alaptop computer, a notebook computer, a netbook computer, a handheldcomputer, a tablet computer, a server, a server array or server farm, aweb server, a network server, an Internet server, a work station, amini-computer, a main frame computer, a supercomputer, a networkappliance, a web appliance, a distributed computing system,multiprocessor systems, processor-based systems, consumer electronics,programmable consumer electronics, game devices, television, digitaltelevision, set top box, wireless access point, base station, node B,evolved node B (eNB), subscriber station, mobile subscriber center,radio network controller, router, hub, gateway, bridge, switch, machine,or combination thereof. Accordingly, functions and/or specificconfigurations of device 1100 described herein, may be included oromitted in various embodiments of device 1100, as suitably desired. Insome embodiments, device 1100 may be configured to be compatible withprotocols and frequencies associated one or more of the 3GPP LTESpecifications and/or IEEE 1102.16 Standards for WMANs, and/or otherbroadband wireless networks, cited herein, although the embodiments arenot limited in this respect.

Embodiments of device 1100 may be implemented using single input singleoutput (SISO) architectures. However, certain implementations mayinclude multiple antennas (e.g., antennas 1118) for transmission and/orreception using adaptive antenna techniques for beamforming or spatialdivision multiple access (SDMA) and/or using MIMO communicationtechniques.

The components and features of device 1100 may be implemented using anycombination of discrete circuitry, application specific integratedcircuits (ASICs), logic gates and/or single chip architectures. Further,the features of device 1100 may be implemented using microcontrollers,programmable logic arrays and/or microprocessors or any combination ofthe foregoing where suitably appropriate. It is noted that hardware,firmware and/or software elements may be collectively or individuallyreferred to herein as “logic” or “circuit.”

It should be appreciated that the exemplary device 1100 shown in theblock diagram of FIG. 11 may represent one functionally descriptiveexample of many potential implementations. Accordingly, division,omission or inclusion of block functions depicted in the accompanyingfigures does not infer that the hardware components, circuits, softwareand/or elements for implementing these functions would be necessarily bedivided, omitted, or included in embodiments.

A computer-implemented method may comprise predicting anentity-reference invocation in a message thread display on a clientdevice; suggesting one or more entities for use in the entity-referenceinvocation in response to predicting the entity-reference invocation;receiving the entity-reference invocation, the entity-referenceinvocation comprising an entity reference; generating a messagecomprising the entity reference; and sending the message to a messagingsystem.

A computer-implemented method may further comprise the one or moreentities comprising two or more of a user entity, a messaging botentity, an article entity, a media entity, a calendar event entity, anda place entity.

A computer-implemented method may further comprise predicting theentity-reference invocation in response to detecting an entity-referenceinvocation symbol in a text-entry field.

A computer-implemented method may further comprise predicting theentity-reference invocation in response to detecting one of an entityname and a partial entity name in a text-entry field.

A computer-implemented method may further comprise receiving an entitytext segment; and suggesting the one or more entities based on theentity text segment.

A computer-implemented method may further comprise the message threaddisplay for a group message thread, the one or more entities comprisingone or more user entities for messaging contacts, wherein in the one ormore user entities are ranked according to one or more of relationshipinformation, messaging frequency, and referencing frequency.

A computer-implemented method may further comprise the message threaddisplay for a group message thread, the one or more entities comprisingone or more user entities for participants in the group message thread,wherein in the one or more user entities are ranked according to one ormore of relationship information, group-message-thread participationrecency, messaging frequency, and referencing frequency.

A computer-implemented method may further comprise the one or moreentities corresponding to one or more user accounts for asocial-networking system.

A computer-implemented method may further comprise the entity-referenceinvocation associated with a invoking user account, the one or moreentities ranked according to predicative learning, the predicativelearning based on an entity-reference history for the invoking useraccount.

An apparatus may comprise a processor circuit on a device; a userinterface component operative on the processor circuit to predict anentity-reference invocation in a message thread display on a clientdevice; suggest one or more entities for use in the entity-referenceinvocation in response to predicting the entity-reference invocation;and receive the entity-reference invocation, the entity-referenceinvocation comprising an entity reference; a client messaging componentoperative on the processor circuit to generate a message comprising theentity reference; and send the message to a messaging system. Theapparatus may be operative to implement any of the computer-implementedmethods described herein.

A computer-implemented method may comprise receiving a message at arecipient client device from a messaging system, the recipient clientdevice associated with a recipient user account, the message comprisingan entity reference, the message addressed to a message thread;extracting an augmentation element for the entity reference from themessage; and displaying the augmentation element in a message threaddisplay for the message thread on the recipient client device.

A computer-implemented method may further comprise the entity referenceassociated with the recipient user account.

A computer-implemented method may further comprise increasing amessaging coefficient between the recipient user account and a senderuser account in response to the sender user account sending the messagecomprising the entity reference to the recipient user account.

A computer-implemented method may further comprise positioning themessage thread display at the augmentation element based on the entityreference being associated with the recipient user account.

A computer-implemented method may further comprise displaying amention-navigation control in association with the message threaddisplay.

A computer-implemented method may further comprise themention-navigation control empowering navigation between one or more ofentity references to the recipient user account and text segmentscorresponding to one or more names for the recipient user account.

A computer-implemented method may further comprise the one or more namescomprising a real name and one or more nicknames, wherein the one ormore nicknames are drawn from one or more client devices.

A computer-implemented method may further comprise receiving anotification for the message from the messaging system, the notificationfor the message indicating that the entity reference is associated withthe recipient user account.

A computer-implemented method may further comprise the message thread apublic group message thread, wherein the notification is received inresponse to recipient user account being mentioned in the public groupmessage thread.

A computer-implemented method may further comprise the notification forthe message indicating that the entity reference is associated with therecipient user account based on one or more of anentity-reference-specific text segment, an entity-reference-specificicon, an entity-reference-specific sound, and anentity-reference-specific haptic signal.

A computer-implemented method may further comprise receiving anotification-deactivation command in association with the messagethread; displaying a reference-notification dialog in response to thenotification-deactivation command; receiving a user command in responseto the reference-notification dialog; and displaying the notificationwhere the user command indicates reference notification.

An apparatus may comprise a processor circuit on a device; a clientmessaging component operative on the processor circuit to receive amessage at a recipient client device from a messaging system, therecipient client device associated with a recipient user account, themessage comprising an entity reference, the message addressed to amessage thread; and extract an augmentation element for the entityreference from the message; and a user interface component operative onthe processor circuit to display the augmentation element in a messagethread display for the message thread on the recipient client device.The apparatus may be operative to implement any of thecomputer-implemented methods described herein.

A computer-implemented method may comprise receiving a message from areferencing client device at a messaging system, the message comprisingan entity reference; determining a receiving user account for themessage; selecting an augmentation element associated with the entityreference; generating an augmented entity reference by augmenting theentity reference with the augmentation element; and sending theaugmented entity reference to one or more receiving client devicesassociated with the receiving user account.

A computer-implemented method may further comprise selecting theaugmentation element associated with the entity reference based on theentity reference being associated with a distinct entity from areceiving user entity for the receiving user account.

A computer-implemented method may further comprise selecting theaugmentation element associated with the entity reference based onsocial-networking information for the receiving user account.

A computer-implemented method may further comprise the entity referencecorresponding to an article entity, further comprising: selecting anarticle preview for the article entity as the augmentation element.

A computer-implemented method may further comprise the entity referencecorresponding to a media entity, further comprising: selecting a mediapreview for the media entity as the augmentation element.

A computer-implemented method may further comprise the entity referencecorresponding to a location entity, further comprising: selecting alocation page preview as the augmentation element and a map view as asecond augmentation element; and generating the augmented entityreference by augmenting the entity reference with the augmentationelement and the second augmentation element.

A computer-implemented method may further comprise the entity referencecorresponding to a user entity, further comprising: selecting one ormore user information items as the augmentation element, the one or moreuser information items comprising one or more of a user name for theuser entity, a user nickname for the user entity, a profile item for theuser entity, a user page item for the user entity, a user relationshipindicator for the user entity, a user connection for the user entity,and a user association for the user entity.

A computer-implemented method may further comprise the messageassociated with a message thread, further comprising: selecting the oneor more user information items in response to one of the message being afirst reference for the entity reference for the message thread and areference-recency for the entity reference for the message threadexceeding a predefined threshold.

A computer-implemented method may further comprise the entity referencecorresponding to a user entity, further comprising: selecting one ormore user controls as the augmentation element, the one or more usercontrols comprising one or more of a group-invitation control, acontact-add control, a friend-add control, a message-compositioncontrol, a view-profile control, an audio call control, anickname-editing control, and a reply-to control.

An apparatus may comprise a processor circuit on a device; a messagingcomponent operative on the processor circuit to receive a message from areferencing client device at a messaging system, the message comprisingan entity reference; determine a receiving user account for the message;and send an augmented entity reference to one or more receiving clientdevices associated with the receiving user account; and an entityreference component operative to select an augmentation elementassociated with the entity reference; and generate the augmented entityreference by augmenting the entity reference with the augmentationelement. The apparatus may be operative to implement any of thecomputer-implemented methods described herein.

At least one computer-readable storage medium may comprise instructionsthat, when executed, cause a system to perform any of thecomputer-implemented methods described herein.

Some embodiments may be described using the expression “one embodiment”or “an embodiment” along with their derivatives. These terms mean that aparticular feature, structure, or characteristic described in connectionwith the embodiment is included in at least one embodiment. Theappearances of the phrase “in one embodiment” in various places in thespecification are not necessarily all referring to the same embodiment.Further, some embodiments may be described using the expression“coupled” and “connected” along with their derivatives. These terms arenot necessarily intended as synonyms for each other. For example, someembodiments may be described using the terms “connected” and/or“coupled” to indicate that two or more elements are in direct physicalor electrical contact with each other. The term “coupled,” however, mayalso mean that two or more elements are not in direct contact with eachother, but yet still co-operate or interact with each other.

With general reference to notations and nomenclature used herein, thedetailed descriptions herein may be presented in terms of programprocedures executed on a computer or network of computers. Theseprocedural descriptions and representations are used by those skilled inthe art to most effectively convey the substance of their work to othersskilled in the art.

A procedure is here, and generally, conceived to be a self-consistentsequence of operations leading to a desired result. These operations arethose requiring physical manipulations of physical quantities. Usually,though not necessarily, these quantities take the form of electrical,magnetic or optical signals capable of being stored, transferred,combined, compared, and otherwise manipulated. It proves convenient attimes, principally for reasons of common usage, to refer to thesesignals as bits, values, elements, symbols, characters, terms, numbers,or the like. It should be noted, however, that all of these and similarterms are to be associated with the appropriate physical quantities andare merely convenient labels applied to those quantities.

Further, the manipulations performed are often referred to in terms,such as adding or comparing, which are commonly associated with mentaloperations performed by a human operator. No such capability of a humanoperator is necessary, or desirable in most cases, in any of theoperations described herein which form part of one or more embodiments.Rather, the operations are machine operations. Useful machines forperforming operations of various embodiments include general purposedigital computers or similar devices.

Various embodiments also relate to apparatus or systems for performingthese operations. This apparatus may be specially constructed for therequired purpose or it may comprise a general purpose computer asselectively activated or reconfigured by a computer program stored inthe computer. The procedures presented herein are not inherently relatedto a particular computer or other apparatus. Various general purposemachines may be used with programs written in accordance with theteachings herein, or it may prove convenient to construct morespecialized apparatus to perform the required method steps. The requiredstructure for a variety of these machines will appear from thedescription given.

It is emphasized that the Abstract of the Disclosure is provided toallow a reader to quickly ascertain the nature of the technicaldisclosure. It is submitted with the understanding that it will not beused to interpret or limit the scope or meaning of the claims. Inaddition, in the foregoing Detailed Description, it can be seen thatvarious features are grouped together in a single embodiment for thepurpose of streamlining the disclosure. This method of disclosure is notto be interpreted as reflecting an intention that the claimedembodiments require more features than are expressly recited in eachclaim. Rather, as the following claims reflect, inventive subject matterlies in less than all features of a single disclosed embodiment. Thusthe following claims are hereby incorporated into the DetailedDescription, with each claim standing on its own as a separateembodiment. In the appended claims, the terms “including” and “in which”are used as the plain-English equivalents of the respective terms“comprising” and “wherein,” respectively. Moreover, the terms “first,”“second,” “third,” and so forth, are used merely as labels, and are notintended to impose numerical requirements on their objects.

What has been described above includes examples of the disclosedarchitecture. It is, of course, not possible to describe everyconceivable combination of components and/or methodologies, but one ofordinary skill in the art may recognize that many further combinationsand permutations are possible. Accordingly, the novel architecture isintended to embrace all such alterations, modifications and variationsthat fall within the spirit and scope of the appended claims.

What is claimed is:
 1. A computer-implemented method, comprising:receiving a first message on a message thread via a message threaddisplay at a recipient client device from a messaging system, therecipient client device being associated with a recipient user account,the first message comprising content and an entity reference within thecontent; receiving a user selection of the entity reference; displayingan entity card comprising information related to an entity associatedwith the entity reference; and displaying one or more entity controls,the one or more entity controls being included and displayed in theentity card and at least allowing communicative interaction with theentity, and wherein the entity card is at least partially overlaid onthe message thread such that the entity card entirely overlaps the firstmessage and partially overlaps a second message in the message thread.2. The method of claim 1, the entity reference associated with therecipient user account.
 3. The method of claim 2, further comprising:receiving a notification for the first message from the messagingsystem, the notification for the first message indicating that theentity reference is associated with the recipient user account.
 4. Themethod of claim 3, the notification for the first message indicatingthat the entity reference is associated with the recipient user accountbased on one or more of an entity-reference-specific text segment, anentity-reference-specific icon, an entity-reference-specific sound, andan entity-reference-specific haptic signal.
 5. The method of claim 3,further comprising: receiving a notification-deactivation command inassociation with the message thread; displaying a reference-notificationdialog in response to the notification-deactivation command; receiving auser command in response to the reference-notification dialog; anddisplaying the notification where the user command indicates referencenotification.
 6. The method of claim 2, further comprising: positioningthe message thread display at the entity card based on the entityreference being associated with the recipient user account.
 7. Themethod of claim 2, further comprising: displaying a mention-navigationcontrol in association with the message thread display.
 8. An apparatus,comprising: a processor circuit on a device; a client messagingcomponent operative on the processor circuit to: receive a first messageon a message thread via a message thread display at a recipient clientdevice from a messaging system, the recipient client device beingassociated with a recipient user account, the first message comprisingcontent and an entity reference within the content; receive a userselection of the entity reference; a user interface component operativeon the processor circuit to: display an entity card comprisinginformation related to an entity associated with the entity reference;and display one or more entity controls, the one or more entity controlsbeing included and displayed in the entity card and at least allowingcommunicative interaction with the entity, and wherein the entity cardis at least partially overlaid on the message thread such that theentity card entirely overlaps the first message and partially overlaps asecond message in the message thread.
 9. The apparatus of claim 8, theentity reference associated with the recipient user account.
 10. Theapparatus of claim 9, further comprising: the user interface componentoperative to receive a notification for the first message from themessaging system, the notification for the first message indicating thatthe entity reference is associated with the recipient user account. 11.The apparatus of claim 10, the notification for the first messageindicating that the entity reference is associated with the recipientuser account based on one or more of an entity-reference-specific textsegment, an entity-reference-specific icon, an entity-reference-specificsound, and an entity-reference-specific haptic signal.
 12. The apparatusof claim 10, further comprising: the user interface component operativeto receive a notification-deactivation command in association with themessage thread; display a reference-notification dialog in response tothe notification-deactivation command; receive a user command inresponse to the reference-notification dialog; and display thenotification where the user command indicates reference notification.13. The apparatus of claim 9, further comprising: the user interfacecomponent operative to position the message thread display at the entitycard based on the entity reference being associated with the recipientuser account.
 14. The apparatus of claim 9, further comprising: the userinterface component operative to display a mention-navigation control inassociation with the message thread display.
 15. At least onecomputer-readable storage medium comprising instructions that, whenexecuted, cause a system to: receive a first message on a message threadvia a message thread display at a recipient client device from amessaging system, the recipient client device being associated with arecipient user account, the first message comprising content and anentity reference within the content; receive a user selection of theentity reference; display an entity card comprising information relatedto an entity associated with the entity reference; and display one ormore entity controls, the one or more entity controls being included anddisplayed in the entity card and at least allowing communicativeinteraction with the entity, and wherein the entity card is at leastpartially overlaid on the message thread such that the entity cardentirely overlaps the first message and partially overlaps a secondmessage in the message thread.
 16. The computer-readable storage mediumof claim 15, the entity reference associated with the recipient useraccount.
 17. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 16,comprising further instructions that, when executed, cause a system to:receive a notification for the first message from the messaging system,the notification for the first message indicating that the entityreference is associated with the recipient user account, thenotification for the first message indicating that the entity referenceis associated with the recipient user account based on one or more of anentity-reference-specific text segment, an entity-reference-specificicon, an entity-reference-specific sound, and anentity-reference-specific haptic signal.
 18. The computer-readablestorage medium of claim 17, comprising further instructions that, whenexecuted, cause a system to: receive a notification-deactivation commandin association with the message thread; display a reference-notificationdialog in response to the notification-deactivation command; receive auser command in response to the reference-notification dialog; anddisplay the notification where the user command indicates referencenotification.
 19. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 16,comprising further instructions that, when executed, cause a system to:position the message thread display at the entity card based on theentity reference being associated with the recipient user account. 20.The computer-readable storage medium of claim 16, comprising furtherinstructions that, when executed, cause a system to: display amention-navigation control in association with the message threaddisplay.